In a heterogeneous telecommunications network comprising macro and small cells, the control-plane, which is closely related to the cell identity and the handover procedure, may be solely transmitted by the umbrella macro cells, whereas the user-plane, which carries user equipment (UE) specific information, can be transmitted by both the umbrella macro and the underlay small cells. In order to allow for a more flexible mobility management, the umbrella macro cells may handle the radio resource control (RRC) layers of UEs connected to the underlay small cells. As a result, the UEs use the control-plane of the umbrella macro cells to synchronize and access the network, while the umbrella macro or the underlay small cells provide their data channels. In addition, since only the umbrella macro cells broadcast cell identities (a handover differentiator), UEs do not trigger standard macro-to-small cell or small-to-small cell handovers.
However, even though the small cells in this heterogeneous communications network do not have a macro-cell-like identity, some form of cell identification is still required for the network to identify the most adequate small cell to serve a UE and transmit its data channels.
It is therefore desirable to provide mechanisms that allow cell-to-UE association in a network with split control-plane and user-plane.